The Future of The Office, Peter Cappelli
The Future of The Office, Peter Cappelli
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The Future of The Office
Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We All Face

Author: Peter Cappelli

Narrator: Eric Burgher

Unabridged: 2 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: G&D Media

Published: 03/31/2023


Synopsis

A GLOBE & MAIL BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic forced an unprecedented experiment that reshaped white-collar work and turned remote work into a kind of "new normal." Now comes the hard part.

Many employees want to continue that normal and keep working remotely, and most at least want the ability to work occasionally from home. But for employers, the benefits of employees working from home or hybrid approaches are not so obvious. What should both groups do?

In a prescient new book, The Future of the Office: Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We All Face, Wharton professor Peter Cappelli lays out the facts in an effort to provide both employees and employers with a vision of their futures. Cappelli unveils the surprising tradeoffs both may have to accept to get what they want.

Cappelli illustrates the challenges we face by in drawing lessons from the pandemic and deciding what to do moving forward. Do we allow some workers to be permanently remote? Do we let others choose when to work from home? Do we get rid of their offices? What else has to change, depending on the approach we choose?

His research reveals there is no consensus among business leaders. Even the most high-profile and forward-thinking companies are taking divergent approaches: Facebook, Twitter, and other tech companies say many employees can work remotely on a permanent basis.Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and others say it is important for everyone to come back to the office.Ford is redoing its office space so that most employees can work from home at least part of the time, andGM is planning to let local managers work out arrangements on an ad-hoc basis.As Cappelli examines, earlier research on other types of remote work, including telecommuting offers some guidance as to what to expect when some people will be in the office and others work at home, and also what happened when employers tried to take back offices. Neither worked as expected.

In a call to action for both employers and employees, Cappelli explores how we should think about the choices going forward as well as who wins and who loses. As he implores, we have to choose soon.

About Peter Cappelli

Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School and the director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources. Peter is the author of several books, including Why Good People Can't Get Jobs, and his work has been featured and reviewed in Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the Harvard Business Review.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jung on July 31, 2023

See how the global pandemic shook the foundations of how we work and what the future has in store There was a time when tech giant Google was the epitome of the perfect office environment. In 2005 it was pioneering all the best perks – onsite meals, napping areas, and even options to bring your pet t......more

Goodreads review by Scott on January 27, 2024

The COVID pandemic continues to shape the face of the global workforce in 2024. This book, written in the middle of the pandemic in 2021, sought to bring prior research about remote work to the forefront of business leaders. Written by a Wharton School professor, it briefly summarizes earlier studie......more

Goodreads review by Brandon on April 15, 2023

Biased conclusions It's clear that the purpose of this book is to poo-poo the success many organizations have experienced being fully remote during the pandemic. The author's conclusion was that supporting a fully remote workforce is basically saying that the past 100 years of office work was a waste......more

Goodreads review by Henry on March 18, 2023

While this book was not as substantial (70 pages) or insightful as I thought it would be, I did learn a few interesting things about remote work. However, it feels like a stretch to be a full book - this feels like a series of blog posts or research articles rather than a book. Part of that is due t......more

Goodreads review by Leyla on December 18, 2022

It could be a simple and short read that focuses both on the advantages and disadvantages of remote work. Nevertheless, it is more than that. It provides an overview of the whole remote/hybrid/on-site work agenda, the political standing behind it, and what the employers and employees should consider......more